Many personal and corporate gifts are purchased on the Internet and shipped directly to specified gift recipients. The user currently is required to populate a web page form with each recipient's shipping address, a time-consuming process—particularly if multiple gifts are to be sent.
Some Internet shopping sites have addressed this problem by maintaining a list of previous names and corresponding addresses to which a given user has shipped goods. On returning to the site, the user can be presented with such a list and may elect to send a further gift to one of the recipients again without having to reenter the address data. That arrangement, however, requires the user to confirm or know that the address information being maintained by that site is still correct, and only concerns recipients who have previously received gifts. The Internet site does not have a reason to stay current with the addresses nor does it have access to the user's address book data.
What remains needed in the art is a method by which an Internet shopping site can offer a user the convenience of selecting a recipient from a comprehensive customized name list, and not require that the user enter the shipping details for a chosen person on that list; even if it is the first time that a person is chosen.
What is further needed in the art and has heretofore not been available is a method by which an Internet shopping site can be enabled to read, with the user's permission, the user's client station address book data and incorporate that data into a customized name list.